My Biography

Thomas A. LaVeist, Ph.D. is the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy and Director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, his doctorate degree in medical sociology from the University of Michigan and postdoctoral fellowship in public health at the Michigan School of Public Health.

Dr. LaVeist has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals including Health Affairs, Journal of General Internal Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Sociology, Milbank Quarterly, Medical Care, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Ethnicity and Disease, Health Services Research, and Social Science & Medicine. He is a highly sought after lecturer at leading universities, corporations, professional conferences and workshops. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Center for Disease Control, Department of Defense, Commonwealth Fund, Sage Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research.

Dr. LaVeist has provided consultation services for numerous federal agencies and healthcare organizations on minority health and cultural competency issues and racial disparities in health. His dissertation on racial disparities in infant mortality was awarded the 1989 Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award by the American Sociological Association. He is the recipient of the “Innovation Award” from the National Institutes of Health, and the “Knowledge Award” from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. In 2013 he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science.

In addition to his scholarly writing, Dr. LaVeist has written articles for Newsweek Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, and the Baltimore Sun. The second edition of his edited volume, Race, Ethnicity and Health: A Public Health Reader (Jossey-Bass Publishers) was published fall 2012. His textbook, Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Race, Ethnicity and Health in the United States, (Jossey-Bass) was published in 2005. He is also the author of The DayStar Guide to Colleges for African American Students (Stanley Kaplan/Simon and Schuster), and co-author of “8 Steps to Help Black Families Pay for College (Princeton Review/Random House). His most recent book project, Legacy of the Crossing: Life, Death, and Triumph among Descendants of the World’s Largest Forced Migration is planned for publication in 2014.